• morto@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    80
    ·
    edit-2
    15 hours ago

    Here in Brazil, a lot of vendors are offering laptops with linux, but they do this just to offer a lower price, and put the most weird distro possible, that no one knew existed, so everyone who buys have to install their own os. The bad thing about it is that it creates a really bad first impression about linux on common users, who mostly end up asking the tech person from the family to install windows for them

    Edit: another random fun fact: in order to offer a lower price, some brands around here also ship laptops with freedos, don’t ask me why.

    • zarathustrad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      36
      ·
      1 day ago

      Why don’t they just install Mint, Zorin, or even xUbuntu (XFCE versions of each)…

      That’s 3 examples with actual support and a user base >3 edgelord cat bois.

      • morto@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        18 hours ago

        I ask myself the same question. I have no idea. Mine is from vaio and came with some sort of modded debian that looked like a stripped down win xp with custom repos that didn’t even load properly.

        • mrbutterscotch@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 hours ago

          You’d think that installing a niche distro like that is more difficult than one of the big ‘plug and play’ ones. Meaning they actively put more work into it, how strange.

      • RogueBanana@piefed.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        Most distro maintainers would expect something for commercial licences. Can’t have them take all your hard earned money! Max I can do is 0$.

        • VAK@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          22 hours ago

          They’re usually gpl licensed. You can do whatever you want with it (including selling it for a bazillion monies) as long as you give the code too.

      • morto@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        18 hours ago

        Exactly, but if we think about it, just putting some random well-established distro would be faster and cheaper than creating their weird modded versions or making contracts with weird firms. Maybe they want to avoid any unexpected legal issues?

        • Dagnet@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          16 hours ago

          Maybe it has some known vulnerabilities? The more reputable sellers I’ve seen around here (I’m also from. Brazil) just ship Ubuntu, it’s usually the sketchier vendors with the weird distros

          • morto@piefed.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            15 hours ago

            Which brands have you seen shipping with ubuntu? I’ve seen vaio, samsung, asus and acer shipping with weird distros. They come like that even from the official stores.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 day ago

      im surprised they don’t just do the underhanded method of acquiring windows.

      well I’d imagine theres some stores willing to oblige doing that.

      curious sakes, what distro do they preload on customers.

      • morto@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        18 hours ago

        Around here, institutions are quire rigorous with that, so stores have to play by the book. Only very small shops can sell pirate software without getting caught

        About the distros, Each brand seem to put a different one, and they’re all weird. Mine came with some sort of modded debian with alternate repos, but was very impractical for use, and ended up installing fedora over it.

      • steelplatedmech@piefed.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        Yeah I doubt my chinese MiniPC came with official Windows. Had recommendation tp go through initial set up offline. Not that I kept Windows. I wiped it and put Fedora on it.

      • jaygray91@piefed.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        Yeah that’s weird. Quite a few of the smaller refurb shops here (south East Asia) just pirate Windows and Office suite.